Thursday, February 14, 2013

There is an old Bollywood number –
socha tha kya, kya ho gaya- sung beautifully by Surayya , the melody queen
of yesteryears. Thisstarting linehas becomemy favourite these days , asI
alsorepeat to myself – socha tha kya ,
kya ho gaya,instinctively. Aftersloggingthroughforthirty five years ofbondedservice life, I had hoped for a happy retired life of a vagabond oran Albela i.e. a self willed person
who is free to do or not to do anything , as he likes- with no boss overhead to control
ordictate. These last aboutseven- and -a -halfmonths of retired lifehave earned methe epithet – ‘bela’ courtesy myever inventive ‘ well educated ‘wifewhorepeats or rather parrotsthe expression ascoreof times every day , not entirely jokingly , much to my annoyanceandconsternation . Now ‘bela’ is a distortion of Punjabiword‘ vehla ‘meaning ‘ idler ‘ with nothing to doand has all the spare time or‘ vehal
’on his hands . I do not know what she expects of me in the twilight years
of my life , thoughmercifully Ienjoy good health, thanks to – more than anything
else- my devil- may- care attitude. Now who can tell her, a typical housewife
that a person has to passthrough& bear with much in life to ensure a superannuation pension tospend the rest of life peacefullyand in cool comfort. Insteadshehasmade me feel like not only an
idlerbut the epitome ofone so much so that I am forced to go astep further and call myselfAl- belaa laotherexpressionswith the Arabprefix Al .

Now here is a call from me
toall my fellow ’ belas
‘to uniteand become aValentine unto one another , as there is little hope elsewhere !